


other words to say the same things

by IceAngels



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Character Study, Falling In Love, Getting Together, M/M, Pining, kind of, slight mysophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23681836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceAngels/pseuds/IceAngels
Summary: If you fell in love would you wait for it too pass like you wait under a bus stop when it rains, huddled away from everyone else yet not touching the walls with your bare arms. A stupid day to not wear a jacket. Or a jacket on top of a jacket.Who would run headfirst into the rain like that - don't you know? You could get sick like that?Sakusa Kiyoomi refuses to get sick.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 138





	other words to say the same things

**Author's Note:**

> "When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth." -Billy, Age 4 (Love as Defined by Children)
> 
> Am I projecting too much? You tell me.

It's 3:21am. Satsuka Kiyoomi is lying in bed. He can't sleep. He hates the way the numbers on the clock are mocking him. In perfect order. Three, two, one. He wonders what they're counting down to. The clock changes. It's 3:22am. 

If anyone was there to ask him why he was sleeping he would have sneered at them. Mumbled something about mysophobia, and let them pretend that was it. In short, he would have lied.

Satsuka was staring at the clock. 3:22am. And he was lying in bed, thinking about falling in love. More specifically, dreading it. He wondered when someone knew if they were in love. He wondered how he could stop it. When he was back in high school at Itachiyama, he got a crush. It was hell. But it went away. Some voice inside him tells him - this one isn't going away. 

He scowls and looks away from the clock. 

He sleeps for an hour and a half that night. 

At practice Atsumu is a bastard. "You look like someone barfed in your lap on the way over here Omi-kun." He says cheerfully. Satsuka scowls. 

"Shut it Miya."

"But why the long face, Omi-Omi. Tuck yourself into bed too tight and couldn't get out this morning? Bug crawl into your shoe?"

"Someone decided to harass me first thing at practice." He snapped back. 

Atsumu laughed. Satsuka found it endearing. In a hideous kind of way. In the kind of way that he thought of him as _Atsumu_ in his head even if he only called him Miya. 

It's a horrible horrible thing. To care about someone he thinks. To care how they look at you. To care how your name sounds in your mouth. When Satsuka says _Miya_ he says it like he would say any other name. He says it like he might say _Bokuto_ or _Adriah_. As if he was refering to the other _Miya_. He doesn't trust himself to say _Atsumu_. He's afraid of what the word might sound, coming out of his mouth. Just like he's afraid of what _Kiyoomi_ might sound like from Atsumu's. 

He tries to stop himself from imagining. Reality is often disappointing.

He misses three serves in a row. Two out of bounds. One against the net. 

Atsumu's serves are better than his in practice. He pretends not to notice the way his back muscles curve under his t-shirt when he does a jump serve. He doesn't often see his back when he serves.

When Atsumu looks over at him after it lands perfectly in bounds he looks away.

He's the first out of the changing room as always. He lives close enough to the stadium to run, so he does. He takes a shower when he gets home, scrubbs the dirt from the day that he can feel across his skin. Goes through his skincare routine. He tries smiling in the mirror. It feels, wrong somehow. 

He eats an early dinner. The day's not over yet, the sun's still got a few hours left in it. He's tired. A kind of tired in his muscles that a good nights sleep would probably wipe away. He picks at the skin on the back of his hand. He doubts he'll get any sleep again tonight. 

It's like a haunting, he thinks. Miya Atsumu. Some kind of ghost he let into his apartment once and never left. He let Atsumu into his apartment once. He had a taped copy of the Japan vs. Germany match from three years ago that Sakusa had been too busy with university to watch and couldn't find online. His price was that he had to watch it with him. 

He had brought thai food. Wrapped up in a bag. Sakusa had scowled at it, and made his own dinner. But part of him wanted to try it anyways. 

Atsumu had brought enough for both of them. He had listened when Sakusa told him to keep his feet off the couch. Had left after they finished watching it. He took the bag of the empty take out box with him. 

Sakusa hadn't asked him to do that. 

He thinks off the two of them sitting on opposite sides of his couch. Watching a volleyball game. Trying not to start at each other. He wondered what it would be like if he stopped trying. He wishes _Miya Atsumu_ was here. 

He gets a text.

Miya: Heeyy Omi-omi let me into your apartment sumu kicked me out of ours and I'm going to freeze to death on the streets!

Sakusa: Freeze  
Sakusa: You can come over.

He sets his phone across the table from him and frowns at it as if he didn't make the conscious decision to text Atsumu that. As if he didn't actually want him to come over. He starts to clean the dishes. Theres a knock on the door. 

He drys off his hands, wanders over, and opens it. Atsumu is on the other side, breathing hot air into the cold, his cheeks flushed. "Can I come in, I'm freezin my ass off here." Sakusa walks away from the door, leaving it open. He goes back to the kitchen to finish the dishes. 

Atsumu appears behind him, far enough away but still there. Sakusa wishes he was closer. He wishes he was across town where he didn't have to see him.

"Can I take a shower?" He asks.

"I said you could come over, not make yourself at home." Sakusa quips. "Only if you make sure to clean the shower after." He adds.

"Oh?"

"And don't use my towel. Get a new one from the closet. And get rid of it after." He goes back to washing dishes. 

Atsumu disapears. 

He leaves the facet running and brings a warm, wet hand to his forhead. _Why did I do that_

Him and Atsumu sit on the couch. Atsumu's clean. His hair is fluffy and a little damp from where he toweled it dry. He smells like the soap Sakusa uses. Lemon and Lavender. "Since my feet are clean can I put em up on yer couch this time?" He asks. 

Sakusa scowls at him.

He leaves them on the ground. 

He's just looking at his phone. He's not smirking. His face is kind of soft-looking. A smile. He wonders if it would be soft to the touch. Sakusa isn't disgusted by the idea of running his fingers down the side of his face. Of touching the spot where his chin meets his neck. Of resting his thumb on his bottom lip. He hates that. 

"What are you looking at?" He snaps.

Atsumu grins up at him. Another day goes by that he's grateful he doesn't blush. "Foxes." He turns his phone towards Sakusa, two foxes are jumping up and down, playing, rolling around in the mud. He grimances, the idea of that mud on him, smeared across his skin, cloging his pores squashing whatever split second feeling of softness he felt. He pushes the phone away from him. Atsumu stops smiling down at his phone. 

They sit like that for a while. Sakusa turns on the TV finding a volleyball game he's already seen. It catches Atsumu's eye and he puts down his phone. Sakusa spends more time watching Atsumu. 

"-akusa, Sakusa? Omi-Omi-Omi?" Sakusa blinks up at Atsumu standing over him. Too close. Too far away. His hand fall away from his chest. 

"Huh?" He asks. He must have fallen asleep. 

"You feel asleep."

"Oh." He must not have been asleep for very long, but he still feels the need to brush his teeth. He stands up and goes to do just that. 

Atsumu is standing by the door when he gets back. He has his coat and shoes on again. 

"Thanks for letting me stay." He says, shifting from foot too foot. He looks pretty tired himself. "I hope I wasn't intruding too much."

Sakusa shruggs. He would ask him to stay, if he could. But he wouldn't dare ask.

Atsumu yawns. "Until next time, Kiyoomi." He's tired. Perhaps that's it, perhaps that's why Kiyoomi's name sinks from Atsumu's lips. The way it escapes like water breaking apart frozen ice in the spring. As if it were always there. Lurking beneath the surface. Waiting. He wonders if he's brave enough to call this love. Perhaps he should call it some other name. As if that would be enough to stop his heart from breaking. But his name sounds gentle spilling from him lips. Not like a taunt, not like the way anyone said "You're so weird Kiyoomi" no like the way his parents said "Play with the other kids, Kiyoomi." It sounds safe. 

Atsumu waves his arms around as if he were clearning the air of the words. Sakusa still hears them. He turns around to exit the apartment. _Kiyoomi. Kiyoomi. Kiyoomi._

"I like you." He says. Miya freezes.  
No. Atsumu freezes. 

He doesn't turn around. Sakusa imagines pulling the words from the air. Would he take them back? It would hurt let, wouldn't it?

"You don't mean that Omi." Atsumu whispers out. 

"I don't take it back." He chooses.

Atsumu turns around. "Can I stay?" He asks. 

_You can stay forever._ "You have to sleep on the couch." Sakusa chokes on the sound. "And wash your feet again your shoes are probably disgusting."

Astumu beams. "Hey Kiyoomi." He says. Safe. Warm. Soft. "I like you too."

**Author's Note:**

> Atsumu: Yer really cute when you sleep~~  
> Sakusa: No I'm not.  
> Atsumu: Yea you are~~~  
> Sakusa: I regret this. Get out.
> 
> I'd like to give a personal thank you to the people who I have never ever ever talked to but who gave me too many feelings and forced me to write this fic:  
> astroeulogy's highs and lows series aka what got me way too into SakuAtsu for someone who is an anime + spoilers only haikyuu fan  
> and newttxt on both twitter and tumblr for the art but specifically for the web simulator comic/fic because it made me cry and gave me feelings and then forced me to write this


End file.
